Chapter 16 - A gruesome finale
"Now we are even, human!" Dawnlight exclaimed to Uriel as she finished off yet another daemon. While she appreciated the humans' attempts to help her, they were almost doing more harm than good as she had to stray from her usual patterns to save lives. However, being outnumbered was beginning to wear on her and she could feel her reaction time slowing and thoughts getting fuzzier. The difference was minimal, though; she still was significantly faster than the daemons.
While impaling the next daemon, Dawnlight noticed that Kade was pulling Uriel out of the brawl in order to tend to the man's wounded shoulder. She was relieved because that meant that both men were now safe from battle and she would only have to work to defend the fresh and unwounded humans. She twisted and turned through combat until she found a new victim and made short work of the daemonette with the makeshift sabre she had constructed out of one of the creature's arms. The boney scythe served well against its brethren as it sliced through limbs like butter and if it became too chipped or decayed for Dawnight's liking, she could easily obtain a new one. Her only complaint was the scythes were not well balanced like the weapons she was used to, so she had very little finesse while working with it. Thankfully, her new allies would not scold her for a sloppy performance.
The flow of daemons was beginning to slow, but those that were left fought viciously as if they knew they were the last of their group. The daemonette she was fighting wielded a large claw and was able to catch Dawnlight's scythe and snap it in two. Dawnlight quickly improvised and used the weapon half she still held as a distraction. She threw it at the daemon's face and as the daemon waved the shard away, Dawnlight lunged in to stab the creature with her Kiss. She gleefully watched the daemon sag as its body was depleted of its innards and then she scouted the area for a new limb she could use as a weapon.
Dawnlight's search was interrupted when she noticed the Sergeant was about to be overwhelmed. He had thrown one daemon to the ground and had finished it off by shooting it in the back of the head, but two more daemonettes were approaching him. Dawnlight called a warning and leapt onto the back of the closest daemon, using her momentum to flip the daemon forward. As the daemon fell, Dawnlight somersaulted off its back and smashed into the next one. She heard a crack from the Sergeant's gun as he killed the first daemon while Dawnlight literally tore apart the second. This beast had smaller taloned arms which would be useful as stilettos so she ripped off both and slid the spare under her belt.
Testing out the rudimentary stiletto, Dawnlight danced through the brawl and found a daemonette with its back turned to her. She let loose a triumphant laugh when the stiletto fluidly slid between the daemon's ribs. Excited by the quick lethality of this new blade, Dawnlight dexterously assassinated daemon after daemon. Just as she was forcing the gradually dulling blade into the throat of a daemon, she heard a whoosh of a large object pass dangerously close to the back of her head.
She ripped her blade from the gurgling daemonette and jolted around to face this new foe just in time to see a large claw swinging for her face. Knowing she didn't have time to dodge, she tried putting up her hands to at least slow the impact but was unable to prevent the blow. Dawnlight crumpled to the ground and her vision was filled with bright white as her brain reeled from the concussive force of the claw. Her sore muscles screamed in complaint as she forced them to move, knowing that if she stayed still for too long the daemon would have a chance to make a killing strike. She had rolled away just in time for she felt the ground beside her shake as a result of the daemon swinging its oversized claw with unthinkable force where she had been laying.
Still blinded from the concussion, Dawnlight scrambled to her feet and threw herself towards where she thought the daemon would be, thrusting with her Kiss. Grievously, she had guessed incorrectly and was unable to steady herself as she fell forwards. Hoping to avoid a counterattack, she rolled to the side again and was surprised when the claw never came. She spared a moment to rub her head and allowed her vision to clear which revealed the man in black to be dueling with the claw daemon. He had his hands clasped behind his back as he coolly sidestepped each clumsy swing the daemonette made with its claw. Apparently, the man had already incapacitated one of the daemon's arms for it was only attacking with the large claw it had previously been brandishing at Dawnlight.
Watching the man steadily evade each of the daemon's attacks made Dawnlight wonder how he could show so much more skill in battle than his underlings. His movement patterns were somewhat Harlequinesque as the elongated strides he took to dodge the claws nearly compared to a waltz. His long jacket made the illusion all the more believable as its flowing movement masked the jerky clumsiness all humans expressed in battle. Finally, the man in black concluded his unintentional promenade when the daemon took too long to recover from one of its mighty swings. Whipping around his pistol with uncanny speed, the man shot the arm off the daemon with a surprisingly accurate bullet to the joint. He then kicked over the armless daemon and crushed its skull underneath the heel of his boot.
Briefly, the man turned his gaze to Dawnlight where she was blatantly watching him from the ground. Embarrassed, Dawnlight quickly looked away in an attempt to hide the fact that she had been marveling at the man's unforeseen talent in melee combat. She gratefully accepted the help from one of the other nearby men as he lifted her back onto her feet. Though she was a little unsteady and her head still throbbed from the hit, Dawnlight was ready to get back into the fight.
There weren't many daemons coming in through the door for she and her allies had killed countless daemonettes while sustaining minimal injuries themselves. Kade had done a great job bandaging the wounded, quickly turning them around to return to the battle. About half the guardsmen were sporting some sort of bloody bandage, yet each of them still fought with the same vigor they had at the beginning of the brawl. Their sheer determination impressed Dawnlight and helped explain to her how humans had spread so far in the galaxy. Previously, she had thought mankind to be nothing but a plague that had been lucky enough to travel planet to planet, similar to Orks or Tyranids. Now as she fought besides them, Dawnlight learned that humans do have sufficient skill in battle and are capable of strategic thinking. A few of them had even saved her from would-be lethal attacks just like she had saved them.
Across the blood-soaked room, Dawnlight noticed a pair of daemonettes had somehow skirted around the battle. The two were now running towards Kade who had his back turned while he was tending to a man with a nasty slice across his forehead. Dawnlight surged into action and shouted "Kade! Behind you!" as she sprinted across the room. The medic glanced back and saw the oncoming daemons but froze up as he had to make a choice between defending himself and keeping pressure on the other man's wound. Dawnlight thought the man selflessly foolish as he kept one hand on the wound and hurriedly tried to apply synthetic skin with the other. His hands began to tremble with the realization that this would be the last patient he ever saved- the daemonettes were too close for him to both finish healing the man and defend himself.
Dawnlight cried out in frustration- she couldn't move fast enough to reach them since she had difficulty moving across the blood-drenched floor. She feared she would have to watch these daemons flay her guardsmen as she helplessly slipped around in a half-concussed daze. Suddenly remembering the blade tucked into her belt, she made a quick decision to target the daemon closest to Kade. Dawnlight thanked Cegnorach that she had been rehearsing her knife-throwing for an upcoming performance as she skillfully cast the stiletto through the air. She was elated when the knife hit its mark in the back of the daemon's skull, causing it to topple to the ground just before it reached Kade. The other daemonette stumbled over its comrade's fallen form which gave one of the wounded guardsmen time to counter the daemon's charge.
In a surge of uncharacteristic heroism, Uriel propped himself up on his wounded arm and used his functioning arm to heave a large piece of rubble at the remaining daemon. The daemonette stumbled backwards, bringing it into range of Dawnlight's Kiss. With a satisfied flourish, she submersed the weapon into the back of the daemon.
Suddenly aware of the silence around her, Dawnlight concluded that they must have been successful in fending off the daemon assault. As the daemonette before her fell, Dawnlight collapsed with it. The weight of the day's events finally fell upon her now that protecting her guardsmen was no longer necessary. She felt Kade's shaking hands tenderly inspect the wound on her head and the last thing she saw as her vision faded was the cadenced approach of bloody black boots.